, 1887-12-28
HOW PIES ARE MADE.
Tho Amount Devoured by Pastry Loving
New Yorkers-Somo Startling Figures.

''f-
The Amount Devoured by Pastry Loving
New Yorkers-Somo Startling Figures.
A great revolution has gone on in the
manufacture and compromising of pie.
No more the housewife carefully meas
ures u "a cup of mix, a spoonful of
saleratus, a lump Of butter, pinch of salt,
three tablespoonfuls of sugar, four sliced
apples and a little pure lard" Today
the dough is kneaded by steam and the
ovens are vast and hot breathed caverns.
In the great kitchen of the modern pie,
factory are numbers of immense copper
kettles surmounting brick ovens, and fat
male cooks stir the savOry masses within.
On little tables around the room arc
dozens Of Wooden tubs holding the Innings
for thousands of pies. Then the busy
bakers take the dough, and before the
oven door with dcft and rapid touches
press 1t INTO the shape of the embryo pie,
int a pan II a line of pies is soon pass
ing into the ovens mouth with wonder-
full celebrity. The ordinary ovens used
will hold about $50 small pies and the
temperature required is graduated with
remarkable skill.
New York, of course, produces and eats
more pies than any city in the world,
although its per capita consumption is
cclip.cd by Chicago, Boston and Philadel-
plia. There are eight or ten large fac
tories dealing exclusively in pies, and be-
tween 500 and COO bakers also make
them. The largest factory is on Sullivan
street, and its output of pie is something
awful to contemplate, and when one
thinks Of the number of churches and
schools the money spent for pie would
It,Il - - &, ,,,,stf,,, - H., .a,a1n.L,,1l
not stop and ask, whittier is this awful
habit carrying us?' In n year or two the
pic habit may rank with the curse of
drink and evils of tobacco as a never
failing fountain from which debating So
cicties and lyceums can draw topics to
argue on.
One of the foremen in the factory on
Sullivan street said:
"In cur establishment we turn out
every kind of pie so far discovered, but
there are certain kinds that are staple.
These are apple, mime, lemon, grape,
raisin, plum, gooseberry, w~hortleberry,
strawberry, peach, raspberry, pineapple,
pumpkin and custard. Apple, mince,
lemon, pumpkin and custard are the fa-
vorites. All our material is the finest in
the market, and we buy it in large guam
titles. always keeping our orders ahead"
"iIow much material do you use
dailyI'' asked the reporter.
I'm a single day we use about 100
dozen eggs. $50 pounds of lard, IL bar
rels of flour, GOO quarts of milk, $500
quarts of fruit, and turn out about 7, 900
pies, or about so, 600 u week and z, 600,-
900 n year. The output from the large
concerns in the city will amount to 3d.
coo pies daily, and the bakers will turn
out about 40, 900 more, or 10, 900 a day,
j25, 900 a week and 27, 800, 900 per
year, an average of about sixteen pies per
capita. These PIES cut into quarters the
usual sizes outside of boarding houses
would make 100, 200, 600 pieces. At an
average of five Cents-as some of the
cheap. restaurants charge only three
cents, and TONER ones ten cents-this
would make New York's annual pie bill
Sj,4G0 600, or more han we pay for
public schools, or the fire and police de-
partments, or send to the heather. New
York produces about one-thirtieth of the
pie crop OF the United States"
This last remark aroused a statistical
vein in The reporter, and he figured until
his brain was dizzy, and these are some
of the results: In the United States there
are eaten every day 2,25O, 900 pies; each
week, 10, $50, 600; each year, $40, OOO,-
600, at a cost of SIG3, 500, 600, an amount
greater than the internal revenue, and
more than enough to pay the interest on
the national debt and pensions. If the
pies eaten daily were heaped one on top
Of another they would form a pie tower
1913, 600 feet, or nearly thirty-seven miles
high; if laid out III line they would reach
from New York to Boston. With the
pie products of a year a tower 13,4GS
miles high could be erected, and stretched
out they would cover a line 50, $50 miles
long, or sufficient to girdle the earth
three times and let u Chinaman in Pekin
chew at the last pie. These pies before
eaten would weigh in a year SO3, 900
tons. Pie is a great Institution, as these
figures show.-New York Journal.